Monday, March 8, 2010

I Love Chemicals

I’ve been addicted to Diet Coke for about five years. I’ve tried several times to quit. I know it’s not good for me. But once I gave up gluten, I stopped trying to quit Diet Coke. I was already quitting gluten…I didn’t want to give anything else up. I made my peace with it. I try to only have one a day, although I was up to 3 a day for a few weeks. And I try to have triple the amount of water.

Then my sister introduced me to Crystal Light.

I instantly liked it. I found a bought a few boxes for buy one get one free, but in all honesty they sat around for a while. That is until this past week. Now…I haven’t gone crazy. I’ve had like a half a packet a day. I find that a whole packet is too much flavor. But here’s the thing:

Oh Aspartame. How I hate thee.

I know it’s bad for me. I know I shouldn’t drink it. I really need to stop.

The weird part is, I have high food standards. I understand the importance of organic farming. I get angry about GMO’s. I live to support local farmers. I absolutely, under NO circumstances, will eat meat that hasn’t been humanely raised and processed. But for some reason, I have ZERO standards when it comes to what I drink. If it’s calorie free, I’m all over it. Ugh.

*************** On to things I will never stop:

My search for the best gluten free pizza dough.

Last night I prepared a box of the 365 brand gluten free pizza mix and divided the dough in to 2 small dough balls and one large. The two small I popped in the freezer; the large dough ball in the fridge. When I got home from work tonight, Parrish had already rolled the dough EXTRA thin.

His and Hers

Being the sweet man that he is, he even made an appetizer of cheesy dough balls.

This was BY FAR the best gluten free pizza we have made yet. It was crispy, chewy, and cheesy. The thin crust makes all the difference. The thicker the crust, the denser the gluten free dough is. Often one slice feels like eating an entire loaf.

I made my pizza with EXTRA sauce and EXTRA cheese. Ooey, Gooey, Goodness

Parrish topped his pizza with green peppers, pepperoni, and local sausage from Fickle Creek. Meaty.

Early bed time tonight! I have an early date with my treadmill and The Young and the Restless. :)

17 comments:

I've been reading your blog for some time now, but I had to write in and admit that I, too, am a Diet Coke lover. I feel like it's my only vice. And I deserve one, don't I??! But I feel guilty now whenever I have one ... I still love it, but that nagging part of me saying I should give it up is still there. Maybe we can kick the habit together? :)

You know I have admitted before about my Diet Coke addiction. I do not eat high fructose corn syrup, any kind of preservative, or non-organic flour. But I cannot not drink diet coke. It just tastes sooo good! We should start a group. Diet coke addicts anonymous. DCAA.

I used to get these sodas made by Diet Rite at Wal-mart. I looked them up on the web, and they've got splenda instead of aspartame. They also don't have cafine, sodium, calories, or carbs. There are a couple of other chemicals in there that you might be trying to stay away from, but I think they might even be healthier than the no-calorie drink mixes. Those mixes quite often leave me wanting to drink more because of the salt content. It might be worth a try...http://www.dietrite.com/

So I thought I was into a real good thing with the Crystal Light too, but like you, I hated the aspertame! Luckily, I've found a yummy alternative. It's called "True Lemon". There is a sweetened (with truvia--a natural sugar....essentially stevia) lemonade version and just a powdered unsweet lemon version. It still has the "fake sugar" taste if you use the whole pack, but it also tastes like fresh, real lemons! I found that using half a pack of the lemonade is more than sufficient in a 16-20oz glass of water. The non-sweetened version is delish as well! yums!

I am exhausted and was going to make leftovers, but after seeing your post I think I'm actually going to head to the kitchen and whip up a pizza. Thank god, I bought a box of 365 pizza crust this weekend. Glad to hear such a good review.

Ohhhhhhh cheesy dough balls. Those sound amazing. What is it about dough and batter that's so tasty?

I can't say I have a diet coke addiction, but one of my best friends and my mom (at one time) was completely addicted, so I know you're not the only one! It's hard to give up gluten, let alone a whole other food, er, drink.

I had a serious DC addiction for a few years. Just started drinking it out of the blue for no reason; took me forever to quit. And it was: quit...drink one ... quit ... quit .. drink ... drink ...quit.

I even did a presentation in my biochemistry class at university on the evils of aspartame. Still didn't quit at that point. Too tasty.

It wasn't until I found out about how it causes you to retain and gain weight because it messes up your satiation hormones/insulin response that I said "why am I drinking you then!!!" and I haven't had one since. That was 2 years ago now.

Here's a part of the low down; there's more info to be had in scientific journals:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_soda

And - I DID lose weight after quitting it, without any other alteration to my diet.

Oh we were separated at birth - I swear it! I am so conscious about everything else I eat - and I thought I had my DC habit kicked for awhile but it's been creeping back it lately. And it's so bad! And even KNOW all the bad stuff about it! But sometimes, it's so gooooood;)